Best Free AI Tools You Should Be Using in 2026
I’ve been cataloging free AI tools that are actually good (not just free trials). Here’s my curated list:
Writing: ChatGPT free tier (GPT-4o mini), Google Gemini (generous free tier), Poe (multi-model access)
Image Generation: Microsoft Designer (free DALL-E access), Ideogram (free tier with watermark), Leonardo AI (150 daily tokens)
Coding: GitHub Copilot Free (2000 completions/month), Codeium (unlimited completions), Google’s IDX (cloud IDE with Gemini built-in)
Productivity: NotebookLM (free, excellent for research), Perplexity (5 Pro searches/day free), Gamma (AI presentations)
Audio/Video: CapCut (AI video editing), ElevenLabs (10K characters/month free), Descript (1 hour transcription)
All of these have legitimately useful free tiers, not fake “free” that requires a credit card. What free tools am I missing?
tried notebooklm last week. pretty cool for research but its limited if your docs are really long
for anyone doing video content - descript with its AI features is incredible. transcription, filler word removal, eye contact correction. legit magic
saving this whole thread. some really good insights in here that i want to come back to
I keep seeing people recommend Cursor but I'm on a linux machine and last time i checked it was buggy on ubuntu. has that improved?